2 things here where does gamesmanship end and cheating begin. AL Leiter when asked says when it goes beyond the players and coaches on the field (that's the way I took it anyway). As an example he said if the catcher is dumb enough to drop a sign with a runner on 2nd then so be it, if in this case someone off the field is stealing and directing the signs to guys that is cheating. BTW Manuel says the guy with the binoculars wasn't hiding. But watching a shot of the video myself he certainly was visibly leaning/trying to lean back into the little darkest part of that area.

Secondly do you think they are cheating and does that explain their utter dominance the last couple of years since Manuel got there? Perhaps time to start looking at their RPG on the road from here on out compared to what it has been? When 4 different teams accuse you there is too much smoke not to be fire IMO..

DENVER -- Binoculars in the bullpen? Major League Baseball isn't happy and has told the Philadelphia Phillies to knock it off.

The Phillies insisted Wednesday they weren't trying to steal signs when bullpen coach Mick Billmeyer was caught on camera peering through binoculars from the bullpen bench at Coors Field earlier this week.

FSN Rocky Mountain, the flagship broadcaster of the Colorado Rockies, showed Billmeyer using the binoculars to peer in on Colorado catcher Miguel Olivo while the Phillies were at bat in the top of the second inning.

It also showed a quick image of Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino in the dugout on the bullpen phone in the top of the second.

"We were not trying to steal signs," Manuel said. "Would we try to steal somebody's signs? Yeah, if we can. But we don't do that. We're not going to let a guy stand up there in the bullpen with binoculars looking in. We're smarter than that."

Mr. PRAGER: When I asked him, well, did you get the signs earlier in that game? He said I don't know why I wouldn't have. He was forthcoming. But when I asked about that very at-bat, what he said was I don't like to think of something taking away from it. And then he said, I'd have to say more no than yes. He waffled. He went back and forth. Finally, when pressed, he said no, he didn't have the sign. The story he has always told is that he was distracted at that moment. That "I wasn't aware of anyone else in the ballpark but me."

To me, I don't really even care if he knew what pitch was coming. I know that the signs were available to him. What I do care about is the effect that holding on to that secret had on him, as well as on Ralph Branca, and the effect that the home run had on millions of Americans.

From wiki

Quote:

In February 2001, Joshua Harris Prager of the Wall Street Journal reported that the Giants had positioned coach Herman Franks with a telescope in the Giants' clubhouse during the latter half of the season, including the game itself, and had stolen the pitching signs of the Dodger catcher, Rube Walker, subbing for the injured Roy Campanella in the playoff game[7]. Prager concluded that the spy had signalled pitches to the Giants' batters, including Thomson, thus enabling Thomson to know in advance what pitch Branca was going to throw him. According to Prager's research, Franks was hidden in Giant manager Leo Durocher's office, which was positioned in the Polo Grounds center field and offered a line-of-sight view of the catcher. A buzzer system was installed so that Franks could signal a player in the Giants' bullpen, located on the field of play in deep left field. The player would then signal the batter as to what pitch was coming.
However, acknowledging that sign-stealing was not made a violation of rules by Major League Baseball, and that it had been a part of baseball since the inception of signs as a means of communication between pitcher and catcher, Prager in an interview with CNN on February 3, 2001, left it to readers to determine if the sign-stealing, which Thomson denied, diminished the stature of the event. While the Prager article said that MLB had formally outlawed sign-stealing in the 1960s, his followup book in 2006, The Echoing Green, notes that the major leagues to this writing have not outlawed the practice.
The burden of uncovering sign-stealers is consigned to the opposing team, typically the visiting team. The fact that the visiting teams won the first two games of the playoff series raises the question of how effective the alleged sign-stealing really was. Nonetheless, Prager points out in The Echoing Green that Thompson hit over .100 higher after the sign stealing scheme began in July 1951 and "no doubt" received advanced notice of the two fastballs Branca threw at him that day.

05-13-2010, 12:00 AM

GADawg

Re: Phillies, the new Patriots?

if you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'

05-13-2010, 12:10 AM

VR

Re: Phillies, the new Patriots?

I like Manuel's quote

"We were not trying to steal signs," Manuel said. "Would we try to steal somebody's signs? Yeah, if we can. But we don't do that. We're not going to let a guy stand up there in the bullpen with binoculars looking in. We're smarter than that."

Uhhh, you had a guy caught. Standing in the bullpen. With binoculars. Looking in. At the opponents catcher.